I think I can quite confidently state: no software is perfect. We all have our little pet peeves over this and that, over something which doesn’t quite work the way we would want it to – and which we often can’t alter because the software isn’t Open Source – and that feeling of frustration isn’t limited to just software. My pet frustration is with Helium at the moment – the web site, not the gas! – who have just rejected two of my proposed titles because they weren’t written in Helium style. I assume it is a software rejection, because anyone possessing half an ounce of commonsense could simply have changed the capitalization in the title. That’s right, I capitalized all the first letters of the words in the title, as I do here, and that’s what they don’t like.

However, that isn’t my thing with this post. With this post I wanted to have a quick look at some of the photo recognition software out there.

Now we all know that various government agencies have started using face recognition software to help them in their fight against crime, against terrorism and just for the pleasure of having something to do. There is a massive data bank somewhere filled with face shots and this can be checked against when something happens which needs a speedy response. Who is that person walking down the street in Washington D.C. with an exceptionally bulky raincoat on this warm, sunny day? Who is that person parking their car in a no parking zone in the City of Westminster? Who is the person in that photograph you’ve just uploaded to Google Plus?

Yes, the powerful and mighty Google uses face recognition software too, so that people can link to other Google users who appear in their pictures. Anyone thought about the privacy problems there?

That isn’t my thing with this post either, perhaps I’m just being distracted.

Photo Source: forumla

This is what I mean. A simple composition photograph of a kitten, amusing, self-explanatory, difficult to find. Difficult to find because when I checked it on TinEye I got plenty of results for the left hand version alone, but nothing at all for the whole which, as I am sure you appreciate, does nothing for my desire to attribute, to give credit.

When TinEye has nothing I drag the link over to my Google bar and let them look a little bit. Mostly it works – perhaps I ought to use TinEye second and Google first, but it is easier to right click and then use the application than drag, open a new tab and so on. Distractions.

Google picture search found what I was looking for and even gave me a few alternatives. Let’s see now:

Photo Source: Google Picture Search

I can see that. Two images in a black(ish) border with a few words. Not exactly a demotivational poster but, if you look at who’s featured, demotivational all the same! But I can see it nonetheless. What else do we have? The kitten came first, Eminem came second and as third we have: